China has exposed its biggest case of stock market manipulation in a show of strength by the securities regulator, which has vowed to crack down on illegal trading.
An investment company was accused by regulators of running “pump-and-dump” schemes related to 552 different stocks for a profit of Rmb426m ($67m).
The company, identified by the China Securities Regulatory Commission as Guangdong Zhonghengxin, was a small participant in the industry, but the prominence of reports about the case in the country’s financial newspapers yesterday suggests the authorities wanted to have a big impact. Although Chinese stock markets have matured in recent years, they are still rife with fraud, from insider trading to falsified financial reports.